Gemma Doyle Fan Fiction
by Dreamweaver-6
Summary: Noel is Gemma Doyle's cousin on her mother's side. She too is attending Spence along with the cousins of Felicity and Ann. Noel also has the gift to go into to the Realms, but will she want to after all she has heard from Gemma?
1. Chapter Un

**Disclaimer: I Do NOT own the Gemma Doyle Trilogy, that is the master piece of Libda Bray. I Do however own the new characters such as Noel, Charles, Mrs. Ester, and Besnik, Aunt Clare, Marie (the French sound of Mary, just so you know the differnce between Mary and Marie), and the Duke Bianchi, (Penelope and Eva belong to two good friends of mine and they said I could use them fot this.) The new story line is mine, however the places that Noel and her friends will go such as the Realms belong to the wonderful Libba Bray.**

_please review :)_

Trees crawled by slowly as the black carriage moved down the dirt lane, kicking up parched brown dust as is bumped it way along to Noel's new home. The August sun was bright and beat yellow-white light into the inside of the small box. It was already warm from Noel's steamy mood and Aunt Clare's curses still lingering in the air. The sun was not helping either of the two moods, as they were dressed in all black, still in the first mourning stage for Marie, Noel's mother.

Low bushes and tree branches long overdue for a good cutting back scraped the side of the doors and windows of the carriage as Noel glared at the passing world. She was leaving her home, her friends, and birth place of her mother behind her. She was now going to attend Spence Academy. Noel had protested all the from her home up until a few miles ago when she realized there was no going back, she was really moving into this school filled to the brim with mystery, she had heard about from her cousin Gemma Doyle.

A couple of years ago Gemma had attended Spence Academy along with her friends Ann and Felicity. Noel had grown up listening to tall tales being told by Gemma, Felicity, and Ann whenever she went to visit her older cousin and her friends' house. The tales told of a magical place. A place only they could enter through a white shining door. This mysterious secret place was known as the Realms. The Realms was a land where anything could happen by the magic that was contained there by huge crystals. It was a beautiful place where they took wild adventures and had lost a friend by the name of Pippa and had trapped an evil monster by the name of Crice.

The wonderful, wondrous Realms had led to an equally frightening and cold land known as the Shadow land. It was in the Shadow land that they had defeated the monster Crice; it was also the place where Gemma had lost her true love, whose name she never spoke. Every time the girls started spinning their wild stories their eyes would glaze over and each would interrupt the other saying "No, no Pippa's eyes were violet not blue." or "Yes, that's right, I remember now, Crice did seem to accept your story rather fast, Gemma, if I recall..."

Noel loved to listen to these stories and she would plead to her cousin to tell her about the time she fought off little fairies or about the time she and her friends went into the Shadow land and how they had to tell the gate what they were afraid of. These stories sent a shiver down Noel's spine and made her feel as close to adventure as she would ever get. Sometimes she wished she could go to Spence Academy and go on the same adventures as her cousin. Now, after three years of stories and childish dreams, six-teen year old Noel had her wish.

It had been three years since Gemma had graduated from Spence Academy and now Noel was going as well. A month after her mother's death, her father claimed she had been "acting out." This was not true, to an extent. Noel had decided to take it upon herself to test out the newest fashion, the hottest topic and the latest gossip. Soon Noel discovered what it felt like to run around without a corset and stockings.

Many times her father had confronted her about these "problems" she was having. He claimed it was just her acting out from her mother's death.

"It does not become a young lady of sixteen!" He had told her firmly a few days after her mother's funeral.

She in return yelled at him saying "All the other girls are doing it! It's the newest fashion Papa! Honestly Mother would have let me wear this. Besides, who is to say what is 'becoming of a lady'? Gemma says that the world young girls live in today is just a lie! We do as we are told, if the weather is stormy we pretend not to notice!"

He had scoffed and answered back, "Ha! Gemma? Gemma is nothing more than a girl gone mad from her mother killing herself and her father becoming an opium addict! You should not listen to her Noel. Or her crazy friends. I heard that the girl named Ann used to cut herself using sewing needles and the other girl Felicity, her uncle did nasty things to her!" He lowered his voice as he said, "They are all insane, driven to tell made up stories so they no longer have to think of their past. You would be wise to remember that you cannot run away from who you are and what you have done. Somehow, some way it will catch up to you." Up until this point he had been sitting at his desk. Looking her in the eye, trying to get her to understand. Now he stood, becoming even grimmer. He set his thin mouth into a scowl and his dark brown eyes hardened into stone. He pushed his wavy black hair out of his face. Then he said in a grave whisper, "Back to the subject at hand. The reason I called you into my private study was not to discuss your crazy cousin or her equally insane friends." He cleared his throat and poured himself a glass of whisky. "Your mother" he said taking a sip form the crystal cup, "would be very disappointed in you. She would never have allowed you to run around like a sex giving strumpet."

Speaking about her mother in such a manor made her blood boil. Her face turned red and her fingers shook. Noel and her father had always gotten along well, but ever since Marie had died he had started drinking more, turning him into a spiteful man that would say anything he thought was right. Noel quickly stood, sending the chair she had been sitting in to the floor with a loud thud.

"You, Papa, are wrong about Gemma Doyle. She is smart and knows way more about this world than you do! Bloody Hell!" She smirked at her father as she said the words no young lady of the time should ever utter. Then she decided to make sure her point was getting across as she yelled, "I HATE YOU, YOU NASTY OLD BUGGER!" and she ran form he room, ignoring her aunt Clare standing outside the door.

...

When her Aunt heard what Noel had said to her father Clare stalked into her brother in-laws- private study and had stated "Ever since her mother died, a collar and leash are nothing short of what the girl needs, Griffen."

Her father, still in mourning of his dead wife, had said, "What the hell do you want me to do Clare? Ship her off to a boarding school?" He had asked.

Clare had glared at him, slowly walked over to his desk where he sat sipping some strong smelling liquor, and answered, "Yes. You and she both need some time away from each other. There is one finishing school that can make your daughter the proper young lady society needs. After all, you are a Duke, one step below royalty, people cannot know that your own flesh and blood is going mad-"

Noel's father Duke Bianchi was getting impatient. "What is your point? What school do you want my daughter to attend to make her the "proper young lady?" He asked taking a swig from his imported crystal glass.

Clare smiled and answered shortly, "Spence Academy, in London, England."

Mr. Bianchi shook his head slowly. "No. No way am I sending my little girl to that... that nightmare of a place!" He sank into his high back, brown leather chair. "You've heard the stories Gemma has told! Horrible experiences, horrible places!" He moaned the last word into his half empty glass.

Clare rolled her eyes. "Those stories are nothing but made up tales to entertain a young child! There is nothing wrong with Spence Academy. She will learn everything she needs to know about how to be a young woman!" Clare sat down in one of the plush lavender chairs in front of the Duke's desk. She had to pull many layers of dress to the side so as to sit more comfortably. Clare was still dressed in her custom made, black, mourning dress and black gloves, and her black veil was pushed to the side so she could talk to her bother-in-law. She would continue to wear all black for another eleven months. She still was upset about Marie's death, but she wouldn't let anyone see her break down like she had that night.

After she had settled down in the chair she spoke in a softer tone. "You are my brother in-law and I love you as though you were my own brother. And I love my niece as if she were my own daughter. I want her to grow up and have everything a girl of her status should have. A loving husband, a stable home, and children to look after." She hesitated a moment then added, "Her mother would want this for her." Then Clare reached out with a slender black gloved hand and placed it on top of Griffen's larger beefier hand. She turned her wet green eyes to look into Griffen's hard brown ones and thought about her sister.

….

It had only been three years earlier when her other sister, Mary, loving wife and mother to one Gemma Doyle, had killed herself. Now Clare was the only family member that knew about the "special powers" her two sisters had had. Clare had been the only "normal" one, but she hadn't argued. Having the power her sisters had had seemed like a large reasonability. Something she felt sure she wouldn't have been able to handle. Later on in life she continued to be thankful for the lack of special abilities. Both her sisters had died because of their powers.

The middle sister, Marie, was able to commune with fairies and other mystical creatures, some of them sweet, others, not so much. Each woman had died in a blood bath; each had had a family member there to watch the horrible passing of a loved one. The worst part was that Mary had never known that Marie still loved her.

When the two girls had been younger they had had a huge argument about how to use their powers. Mary had wanted to grow stronger and gain more, while Marie just wanted to help others with her abilities. Clare was stuck in the middle of her two eldest sisters arguing about their powers, a subject she had no insight to. The argument had escalated over the years and soon made the two sisters burst with hatred.

After Marie turned 18 and had graduated from Spence Academy, she decided she could no longer live in the same country as the middle sister, so she gathered her belongings and moved from England to Florence, Italy. She had claimed that there were more fairies and the like that she talk to there. Clare had begged her to change her mind, but Marie was very stubborn and said she would keep in contact with Clare, but never again would she speak to Mary. Marie had kept that promise.

Over time Mary had forgiven Marie. Mary, too, had attended Spence Academy. Something had happened there that made Mary realize that gaining power was not the answer. While she was at Spence Mary would write to Clare and beg to know news of her sister. Clare had been an obedient little sister and told Mary everything that she wanted to know. Whenever Mary was allowed to visit Clare she would plead to hear about Marie. One visit Clare told her that Marie had met a man and they had settled down together. In the letter after the visit she told Mary that Marie was pregnant with her first child. About nine months later Marie wrote to Clare proclaiming that the child was a girl and her name was Noel! This news she passed on to Mary, who by this point had moved away to India with her own husband and her three year old daughter Gemma, claiming England was no longer safe for her. Clare was now checking every morning and night to see if any word had come from either of her sisters. When something new arrived about Marie, she would pass on the news to Mary, but never did she do the vice versa and Clare never relayed the bits and pieces of horrible things Marie said about Mary.

This continued for several years. Clare went back and forth between one sister and the other, always feeling as if her body were going to rip in two from the pressure of trying to be a loyal sister to both. Then something happened that sent her world spiraling out of control. Mary had killed herself in India. Clare had boarded a steamship to Italy to deliver the message herself to Marie. When she arrived at her sister's house in a black mourning dress and veil to cover her tear stained face, her sister had simply said "I know. I know what she did and if you ask me It's what she gets for not using her powers correctly." This had set Clare into a break down sob, making her weak in the knees and light headed. Marie felt so bad for making her baby sister cry that she invited her in, and Calare had never left.

It was while she lived in Italy that she learned that Marie's husband was a Duke and it was here she met her niece Noel. Noel was thirteen when Clare came to live with Marie, and what a beautiful thirteen year old she was. Noel didn't look like a normal Dowd girl. Whereas Marie and Mary had red hair and Clare had blonde, with green eyes, Noel had black hair that had touches of midnight blue when the light hit it just right. Her eyes were a pricing blue-grey color. Her skin was fair like a Dowd's and her lips just as ruby red. Clare had taken one look at the girl and known that something was special about her. She too was going to have special gifts when she turned of age.

Marie knew this as well. In fact, they had had several late night discussions on the subject when the Duke was out attending to some business and Noel was fast asleep in her suite.

"I know sister. I know what she will be when she reaches the proper age. That is why I must never leave my husband, and I must never leave my child." Marie had told Clare one night.

Clare had decided right then and there that she needed to stay with her sister. Gemma had no clue of their existence (Mary had never told her daughter or her son about her two sisters) and her mother Tom and Gemma's grandmother, was taking care of Gemma, so Clare had more time to worry about her family in Italy. Clare had someone take care of her home in England and had all of her personal belongings sent to her sister's home in Italy.

For three years Clare helped take care of Noel whenever Mr. and Mrs. Bianchi had to attend a ball. Or when the Duke had a meeting to attend and Marie had "other matters" to attend to. It was because of these other matters that Marie had passed away.

Marie was well known in the surrounding villages for being able to rid the streets of odd noises or banish bad spirits from homes. While she told the villagers that she could commune with bad spirits, it was really bad fairies that she could commune with. On several triumphant nights Marie would boast to Clare, "I can handle any creature that comes my way!"

Clare had warned her sister not to become too cocky. "Sister." Clare had said one night after, yet another success. "Do, please, be careful. You never know what might happen. One of these creatures could be dangerous and if-"

"Clare. I know what I am doing. I promise you, I'm not going anywhere. I can handle any creature that comes my way." With that said Marie flounced up stairs to go to sleep. She always took care of business during the night.

One of the creatures she thought she could handle had turned out to be too much for her. The creature was known as a Aswang, a cross between a vampire and a witch. Marie had heard that it was terrorizing a local village, so she went to go stop it. She had known what it was and what it could do to her, but she didn't know that it could transform into either a black dog or a wild boar. That unfaithful night the she devil had chosen the form of a wild boar. Marie had not gone to fight the Aswang, only to try and talk to it, to try and convince it that these people meant her no harm. But the Aswang had not wanted a conversation, she had wanted a fight. The sneaky Aswang had crept up on Marie from behind and had stabbed her in the back with one of its tusks. The stab didn't kill her instantly, but Marie had sense enough to know that she wouldn't live through the night.

Marie staggered back to her home and collapsed on the porch, screaming in pain. Clare had been waiting for her sister to return. She sat in the parlor working on her needle point when she heard the screams of anguish. Clare jumped up, her needle point falling to the floor, forgotten. She ran to the door, forgetting that it was not lady like to run, and slung it open. There, lay her dying sister. Clare fell to her knees and cradled her Marie in her arms. Blood poured from an open wound in her back and every breath she took was shaky and weak.

"HELP! PLEASE SOMEONE! ANYONE!" Clare called into the silent night.

Marie put her hand on her sisters face, smearing blood all over Clare's cheek. "Sister. Clare. It is too late for me. Please, don't cry."

Over her own sobbing, Clare could hear other voices and footsteps coming from inside the house, but they seemed to be miles away. Too far to help her sister. "Marie. Why did you go. You knew..." Clare cut off, unable to speak around the stone size lump, forming in her throat.

Marie smiled and said in a whisper, "Yes. Yes I knew. I also knew my time was coming. I could feel it and now I do not fear the Great Father." She took a shaky breath before continuing on. "Sister. Promise me you will take care of Noel. She will have mine and Mary's powers. She will be so beautiful..." She sighed and looked up at the sky. Then she said the words that haunted Clare for the rest of her life. "Mary? Can you ever forgive me? May I come with you?" Then with one last shaky breath she closed her eyes and was gone from this world.

Clare bent over Marie's body and cried. She heard voices around her saying that they must stop all the clocks in the house, someone must tell the Duke of his wife's passing, someone must tell the child she no longer had a mother. There were mumbled questions as to what she had done to upset the Mother Mary. What had she done that she needed to ask for forgiveness? Clare could hear everything that night, but nothing seemed to be real. It was as though she were trapped in a tunnel and she could hear the echoes of the voices, but they were all bouncing off the walls and there were so many of them that she couldn't make out what the voices were saying. Only her sister's body, steadily growing colder in her arms, and her sister's last words, were only true and real. Clare didn't even notice the sticky red substance that clung to her dress and skin or the tusk size hole in her sisters back. All she knew at that moment was that her sister was dead.

It was now six months later. After two days of speaking with the Duke in his study, trying to convince him that Spence Academy was where Noel needed to go, and four days of packing and getting ready for the trip from Italy to England, Clare now sat looking at young Noel and Noel sat glaring out the window.s


	2. Chapter Deux

Three years ago Noel had learned that she had a cousin by the name of Gemma. She had also learned that Gemma's mother had died when she was sixteen and that she had attended a school known as Spence academy. All the stories Gemma had told Noel were full of adventure and romance! The type of stories Noel loved most, but was not allowed to read about in books.

Noel's father was outraged that Noel was hearing such nonsense and he had told her to stop asking to be told the tall tales.

"Tales are for babies. You need to focus on your school work darling. Next time we go to visit your cousin, you will not ask for the stories, do you understand?" Her father had commanded.

"Yes, Papa," Noel had answered, lowering her had to look at her hands resting in her lap. He had called her in to speak with her about her school grades which were dropping. On a letter that a teacher had sent home it had stated that she had been telling some of the other girls stories that gave them nightmares. Some of the parents had complained and had wanted to know that they were being taught in school. The teacher had assured the parents that they were being taught all the ways to be a proper young lady and that there was no storying telling in her classes. This was when one of the parents had asked her daughter where she had heard such a horrifc tale, if she had not heard it at school. The girl had sworn she had heard it from Noel Bianchi. Thus a letter was sent to the teacher and the teacher sent a letter to the Duke. Now here she was being told she was never allowed to hear her favorite stories ever again.

After her father had dismissed her she went to the only person she felt would understand, her Aunt Clare. Before her mother died Noel and Aunt Clare had been very close. Even though her Aunt looked after her when her mother and father were out, Noel never looked at her Aunt as a care taker, only as a friend and play mate.

The after noon she was told not to listen any more stories she went to talk to Aunt Clare. After walking up two flights of stairs and down a long hall with walls the color of cotton, she found her aunt in her room, putting the finishing touches on a bun in her hair. The door was wide slightly cracked. Noel pushed gently to open the door a few more inches, then she knocked on the doorframe.

"May I come in Aunt Clare?" Noel asked, smoothing out some wrinkles in her red satin dress that complimented her red lips.

"Please do." Clare said with a wide smile. She pat the cream colored chair that sat in front of a small vanity table.

Noel smiled and walked into her aunts room and sat down in the chair. After a moment of silence Noel glanced up at her Aunts reflection and stated. "I wish I had blonde hair like yours Auntie."

Her aunt smiled and said, "Noel, don't you ever wish you were any different than you are. You are beautiful. Every part of you is special and perfect." She said, trailing off with a disant look in her eye, almost like the look Gemma and her friends got when they told Noel the stories, only Aunt Clare's look had a touch of sadness buried within her glazed glassy greens. Before Noel could ask what she meant Aunt Clare shook her head and looked at Noel on the mirror and said, "But I can give you the same type of up due" she lifted a small strand off Noel's shoulder and smiled.

Noel nodded and settled into the chair. "Make it look just like yours Auntie."

Clare gave a light laugh and said, "You bet."

Noel let her aunt brush her hair for a few moments before she thought of a way to ask what was on her mind.

"Auntie. Why doesn't he like the stories?" Noel closed her eyes, as Clare brushed her long curly black hair.

"Because, they scare him. He doesn't want to lose you in a world he thinks is false." She answered back, tugging lightly on one of the curls.

"What do you mean Aunt Clare? I thought the stories were false? Just tall tales right?" Noel asked opening her eyes and tried to catch her Aunts gaze in the mirror. Instead she saw the side of her aunt's face, looking towards the door, as if she expected someone to enter at any moment.

Aunt Clare pulled Noels hair into a tight bun. She had to stick forty pins into Noel's hair to make the bun would stay. After she had finished fixing Noel's hair, Clare kneeled down beside Noel in the chair. She took Noel's hand in her own and looked up into Noel's grey- blue eyes.

"Noel. Gemma's mother was a very special person and so is Gemma. Even your very own mother is special in a way that would scare most people in today's world..." Clare trailed off as she heard footsteps coming down the hall.

"Aunt Clare?" Noel asked. She was starting to worry about her aunt. What was she talking about? Her own mother was what?

Aunt Clare looked as if she were about to say something else, but before she could say anything Noel's mother came in. Marie looked at Clare and Noel and scowled.

"Clare. I need to speak with you." Marie had stated in an icy voice.

Noel had never heard her mother sound so forceful. She stood up and walked quickly and queitly out of the room her dress rustling as she hastened out of the open door. Marie closed the door behind her daughter. As Noel walked down the hall to her own room she heard raised voices coming from the direction she had just come. Noel was never a very nosy girl, but she wanted to know what had upset her mother so much. She turned around and crept back to her aunt's room and stood outside the door.

"-Almost told her!" Noel heard her mother shout at her Aunt.

"She needs to know! Look what happened to Gemma! Mary never told Gemma about what she could do and she never told Gemma what would happen when she turned the proper age! She was terrified and she didn't know what was happening to her! The poor girl probably thought she was some type of freak! We're just lucky she found out about us and we're also lucky that her friends didn't turn her in for being mad!" Clare shouted back.

What was going on? What were they talking about? Was wrong with her cousin Gemma? Noel pressed closer to the door to listen some more.

"Clare, I know she needs to know! But we aren't going to be like that pig headed, brainless, careless sister of ours. We will tell her! We still have time-"

"A year Marie! We have a year!" Clare stated.

Noel stepped back from the door. 'A year to tell who what? Me? Am I sick? Mom has another sister? Why haven't I met her? 'She thought. She shook her head and stepped back to the door.

"Clare." Came the voice of a calmer Marie. "She will have me and you and sometimes Gemma to help her get through this. Trust me, Okay? She will be strong and she will get through this with us to guide her."

Noel heard her aunt sigh, and then there was a brief pause, where her mother and sister could have been hugging or staring at each other with an unbreaking understanding gaze, like she had seen them share other times before when her aunt said something that Marie hadn't wanted her to say. Then Noel heard the sound of the floor creaking as someone walked towards the door. She knew she shouldn't have been out there eavesdropping. She looked around and found a small door behind her. She pulled it open and slipped inside just as someone was coming out. She left the door open a crack. Small enough not to be noticed, but large enough to watch her mother leave her aunts room, wiping her eyes. She waited for the rustle of her mother's dress to be far enough in the distance before she slipped out of the room.

Noel had never learned what her aunt and her mother had been talking about. A year went by and they never told her anything. Soon Noel forgot all about that mysterious conversation and moved on with her life.

Then her mother died, and her life came to a grinding, screeching halt. When she learned that her Aunt Clare had been with her mother in her last moments, Noel felt a pain in her chest that she could only described as pure hate and betrayal. This was when Noel and her Aunt no longer shared laughs like they used to, when Noel stopped going to her aunt for advice, when Aunt Clare and Noel stopped being friends.

Only a month and six days after her mother's death and everyone was acting as if Marie had never lived. As if life were still normal without Noel's mother around to spread joy to those whose life she had touched. Life was no longer the "normal" she had known it to be a month ago. For example, her father stayed locked in his study during the day, crying and drinking until he passed out. He would let no one enter, not even if it was business related. Another example was the fact that Noel was sitting pressed against a glass window while she world still turned and she was expected to act as if she weren't wearing black for mourning her dead mother. She wasn't supposed to be upset about the fact that she was leaving her home where her mother and father had been born and raised as close friends.

Noel could still hear her mother telling her stories about how her mother and father had met. Marie used to tell about how her and Griffen used to have so much fun taking walks and when they were older he would take her on boat rides. Her mother even told her that once they had visited London England together. When Marie had told Noel this Aunt Clare had been in the room and had made a strangled sound as if she were about to bust out and say something, but she quickly put an hand over her mouth and looked down at the ground. Noel had given her aunt and odd look, but shrugged it off, figuring her aunt must have had a cough or something.

Nothing was right. This whole bloody world was twisted and wrong for snatching her mother away from her. When Marie had died it felt as if she had taken Noel's feelings for love, hope, faith and every other pleasant feeling with her to the heavens. Now it felt as if Noel were leaving all the good memories as well, behind in her Italian home. She was being forced to come live at Spence Academy. At one point she had wanted to come here, she had wanted to have the same adventures as Gemma. After her mother died she realized she needed to grow up, she realized she could no longer believe in childish nonsense.

Her Aunt Clare had come to live in England and would watch over her as she attended Spence Academy. Noel would live at her aunt's house during the major Holidays and she wouldn't see her father for another two years.

As Noel thought about not being able to see her father tears sprang to her eyes and she tried to wipe them away as quickly as possible so that her aunt wouldn't see them. Too late. Aunt Clare had noticed the tears and sighed, letting Noel know that another lecture was building behind her aunts perfect rose red lips.

"Noel."

'Oh great.' Noel thought, 'here goes the whole "you're a becoming a women now" speech.'

"Noel, I know that losing someone so close to you is really tough. It's happened to me...several times. But that is one lesson you must learn as a young lady of today's world. People die and we live on. We wonder why they were taken from us so soon. Men, have a habit of breaking down and they seem to have a harder time with it. They can drink freely and cry as much as they want. Women, though, women must learn to cry, and then suck it up. Hold back your shoulder, puff out your bosom and stick that nose in the air." Aunt Clare smiled as she took Noel's chin and lifted her nieces head. She let go and continued saying, "You, Noel Marie Mary Bianchi, are a daughter of a Duke."

Noel almost felt as if she and her aunt could be friends again when suddenly Aunt Clare straightened her back to the point it looked as if she were about to bend over and touch her heels. Her head tilted up and she looked down on Noel with her eyes half closed. That's when Noel knew that the bonding was over and her Aunt had morphed back into the new steel fisted aunt she had turned into after her mother died.

"You will attend this school and you will be the best young lady that you can be. You will wear your corset and stockings every day, you will tie a board to your back to learn how to walk proper! You will attend all classes, French included and you will NOT, I repeat, NOT, get into any trouble." Clare said sternly.

Noel let her head fall back down like a dead weight. She looked at her hands for some time before asking, "Aunt Clare, why am I coming here. I thought Papa hated this place. After all the stories Gemma told and-" Noel stopped when her aunt held up a hand.

"Your father and I had a long dissection about your future and we both agreed that you need female guidance in your life. After your mother died, I had planned on moving back here. Your father was worried that without the proper guidance you would grow up to be a ruffian. So I offered to bring you along as long as you attended the right school. In the end he agreed. Now, Sit up straighter, that's it, and hold your head high. We are here. The head Mistress has agreed to greet you herself. Now your father worked very hard to get you into this school, I do not want you to give him a bad name."

Noel mumbled, "Wouldn't dream of it." She turned her head to look out the window, and she they came over a small hill she saw a large ominous building looming over head. As they passed under a grey stone archway and the iron gates opened to let the carriage pass, the school drew nearer. It was grey and dreary looking with frightening gargoyles on the roof, baring nasty fangs at any that dared to enter their domain. The claws that gripped the side of the school were sharp and sinister, threating to slash a person's throat if they closed their eyes for one moment in the dark. The dark depressing prion like school had a lush green gardens and a large green lawn, perfect for taking strolls in the late afternoon, to catch up on gossip. The closer the carriage drew to the school the more of the layout Noel could see. She saw the entire school was surrounded by trees and that there was a chapel on a hill not too far away.

In contrast to the dull greyness of the building and the snarling creatures positioned for attack up above, Noel could saw six other girls about her age and an older women standing outside, all with hands folded neatly in front of them. All of the student girls had on the same white flared white skirt; with puffed out sleeves white boots; and the same false smile. Had they all had the same skin color, eye color, and hair color, they could have been clones. The older woman was dressed in a grey dress and had grey hair pulled back into a tight up due. Her eyes were a startling blue color and they popped with all the grey and white surrounding her.

The carriage came to a jerky halt, Aunt Clare put on a false smile to match the ones outside the window, and Noel took a deep breath.

'My life in perky hell begins now.' She thought as the black velvet door slowly opened.

"Welcome, Miss Bianchi, To Spence Academy! I am Head Mistress Ester," Said the older woman standing in front of the white dressed clones.

Noel took the cabby's hand as she dismounted the carriage. She stood for a moment in an awkward silence. Her head held high and her shoulders held back she mimicked they're crossed hands and fake smiles.

"I am accustomed to strangers bowing to me when they are in my presence." Noel said in the snottiest voice she could muster.

Aunt Clare climbed out of the carriage just in time to hear this command and stood still with the same shocked expression on her face as the ones that looked at Noel.

"Noel. Darling, this is England. They do not have to bow to you here. They would only bow to your father if he were here. Here you are just a normal girl." Aunt Clare said stepping up behind her, placing a hand on her shoulder.

Noel felt her heart skip a beat and she looked at her Aunt, it was her turn to be shocked. "What? Normal? No one bowing down to me? All the other girls at the other academy were important. Their fathers were Noble men and their Mothers ladies of high society!" She could feel heat rising to her face in anger. Finely she let it all lose. "Bloody Hell? What type of damned place are you sending me to?"

Everyone, including the cabby, gasped at her language. Their eyes grew wide and the girl students took a step back, as if standing anywhere within two feet would cause them to spontaneously bust into cursing as well.

The Head Mistress cleared her throat, "Miss. We do not use that type of language here. You would do well to remember that. Now, please gather your belongings and follow me inside." Head Mistress Ester turned on her heel and walked up the grey steps to a black door.

Noel cast one annoyed glance at her aunt and followed the old lady dressed in grey. She lifted her black dress up so as not to step on it as she climbed up the stairs. Her black boot heels clipped-clopped on the hard stone steps as she filed in behind the clones.

Suddenly she noticed that the white dresses were growing blurry and their voices around her were growing more muffled as she got closer to the school. Her head began to feel light, her limbs grew heavy. Noel's knees gave out and she crumpled to the ground on the last step before the door way of Spence Academy.


End file.
